


A Storm Is Coming

by bananasandroses (achuislemochroi)



Series: Whofic [64]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Closure, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Recovery, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Pete's World, Reaction to Trauma, Recovery, Season/Series 02, Tenth Doctor Era, Varied POVs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-30 20:18:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8547718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achuislemochroi/pseuds/bananasandroses
Summary: The road to Canary Wharf is long and winding.  And not all events destined to happen there are fixed.





	1. Storm Front Rising

For all you're the New New Doctor, at heart you're still the same man you've always been. Terrified to commit to anyone or anything because you know you'll always outlast it. And bitter, painful experience has taught you there's nothing worth having that won't hurt in the losing. Articulating that in a coherent manner, though, is something you're terrible at; you don't realise why until you've tried multiple times.

Your hearts aren't in it.

For once, you want to experience what it's like to let yourself love someone.

And who better to let yourself love than the pink-and-yellow girl you more than suspect you're already half in love with? The golden goddess who brought you the peace and absolution you never thought you'd know. It had been an honour and privilege you don't deserve.

The words, when they come, are simple even for you. You promise you'll never leave her, will never up and disappear without her (or not without a bloody good reason, at least). You swear you'll never leave her behind.

You'll say anything, do anything, go anywhere. Whatever it takes to keep her with you.

And as you listen to her promise "for ever" in return, you realise – now it's too late, now you've fallen – this, _this_ , is why you've never committed himself.

There's a storm front rising; you can _feel_ it.

You'll do anything. Go anywhere. But you've sworn to keep her with you always, and so you refuse, while there's strength in your bones and life in your body, to even _think_ of giving her up.

  



	2. Storm Clouds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not sure I believe you. I want to, but I don’t know if I _can_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set between _The Satan Pit_ and _Love and Monsters_.

You’re lying in bed together, weeks later, wrapped around each other – your head nestles on his chest and his fingers tracing patterns on the skin covering your collarbone – when you at last feel safe enough to bring the subject up again.

This side of your complex relationship is still so new – it wasn’t until after you’d barely escaped Krop Tor with your lives that the Doctor finally let down the last of his barriers and admitted something of his feelings for her (you’re not naïve enough to think he’s told you all of it; you’re curious, but you’ll take what you can get) – that you aren’t confident about telling him any of it.

The only reason you’re mentioning it at all is because you're frightened and searching for both comfort and reassurance. Even so, it’s taken you this long to pluck up the courage to say anything at all. You want to ignore it, want to relax and enjoy the wonderful new depth of your ever-changing relationship, but it’s insidious and worries at you until, at last, you give voice to it:

“I’m not sure I believe you. I want to, but I don’t know if I _can_.”

His fingers stop.

“Rose? What’s wrong?”

He moves the two of you, without ever breaking contact, until he can look you in the eyes. Whatever he can see there prompts him to pull you into a tight hug, holding you close against him.

“What is it, my love?” he says again – quiet, now, although she can hear a hint of panic in it already. This makes you even more nervous. Can he feel it, too? The fact he’s just come the closest he ever has to telling you he loves you passes you by.

Your most recent adventure could not have brought this on – something sweet and calm, for once, no death or destruction anywhere – so it must have been something else. A premonition, perhaps? It scares you a little; you shiver in his embrace, and his arms tighten around you. He looks at you, his concern clear, but he gives you the space to talk in your own time.

“He said I would die. In battle. The Beast.”

Your voice seems faint and far away. A look of alarm crosses his expression and for a moment there’s silence. Only a moment.

“Oh no. No, no, no. Is _that_ what you’re worried about?”

He leans in and kisses you – a short, hard kiss on the lips – before continuing in a fierce tone of voice (is it meant as reassurance for you – or for him?)

“You’re not going to die. I won’t let you. D’you hear me, Rose? _I won’t let you._ ”

And he kisses you again, long and deep this time and with the same intensity as had been in his words seconds before. You know he means what he says, and you know you ought to feel comforted.

But what if he’s wrong? What if he’s wrong, and it’s something he can’t prevent? And then you realise you have a name for the feeling: it’s like the calm just before a storm.

_A storm is coming._

  



	3. Storm Warning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set late Season Two, but before _Army of Ghosts_.
> 
> Beta'd by [Requialexa](requialexa.livejournal.com).
> 
> Sections in italics are from the ABBA song _Slipping Through My Fingers_.

_Slipping through my fingers all the time …_

Against your better judgement, you’re letting her convince you that “for ever” means what it says. You’ve known, for a while now, however much time she has left (with you) will never be enough. Her repeated promises of staying with you “for ever”, the ones you encourage because you’re desperate to believe them, are little more than a gloss: less an (illusory) promise of eternity than a stark reminder that time is running out.

_I try to capture every minute_

Little by little, as the days run into each other and a pernicious little whisper in the back of your mind repeats its message about how a storm is coming (you try to ignore it, but the unwanted knowledge permeates everything around you; you find reminders of it _everywhere_ ), you cling to her a little more. Not so anyone would notice, unless they’re looking for it, and you do your best to make sure she doesn’t. But she’s never been a fool, and you suspect she already knows. She’s lived this life, known you, long enough by now to know when you’re trying to hide things.

These things are true, but it doesn’t mean you have to _like_ it.

_The feeling in it_

You’re wildly in love with her; the fierceness of that love means all you want to do is protect her, keep her with you; the mere idea of being unable to do so for much longer makes you heartsick, queasy with fear.

_Slipping through my fingers all the time …_

You’re terrified of the future. How can you fight what’s coming, if you don’t know what it is? But there’s something unnegotiable: you cannot, _will_ not, lose her. You know the rules of Time backwards, know you shouldn’t consider changing events once they’ve happened. But there’s nobody left to stop you and, for her, you’ll not be stopped. You know a few tricks, still; the superstitious call it magic, but you know better. You decided, long ago, no-one means more to you than Rose, and to protect her all bets are off.

_Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture_

You remember hearing someone – you? – saying the most dangerous person was the one with nothing left to lose. For you, this is a lie: you’re impossibly dangerous. It’s no coincidence the one thing you stand to lose is the first good thing that’s happened to you in a long time. She keeps you honest. Keeps you from letting the Oncoming Storm subsume you. And she helps you know where to stop. But knowing you’ll never be able to let her go, not ever, makes her declaration of "for ever" even more important than she thinks it is.

_And save it_

Time is running out. You know it is; your Time sense has never been wrong. What you don’t know, because you can’t bear to find out, is how it’ll happen. You tell her over and over again, brushing a hand through her hair as she lies half-asleep in your arms, that the Beast lied when it said she would die in battle. You’re not sure she believes it any more than you do.

_From the funny tricks of time._

You’ve always had trouble keeping your eyes off her, but now it’s worse than ever. You drink her in at every opportunity, trying to burn her image into your memory so you’ll have something of her light to remember when the darkness comes. But she is so completely alive you know you could capture only a fragment of the real Rose. The glorious, fragile, beautiful flower you love so very much.

_Slipping through my fingers …_

  



	4. Storm Breaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes your life depends on listening to instructions.

“Once the breach collapses, that’s _it_. You will never be able to see her again. Your own mother!”

You might have known she wouldn't take well to being told what to do; most of the time that stubbornness is one of her most endearing qualities, but right now? It took everything you had to send her away from you in the first place; glad as you are to see her, sending her to the parallel universe was for a reason. Can’t she understand you need her to be _safe_ , above all things?

“I made my choice a long time ago, and I’m never gonna leave you.”

_Don’t tempt fate._

You think plenty but say nothing, staring at her instead. She’s either braver or more foolish than you’ve ever given her credit for, but you’re so happy she’s back you can almost make yourself believe it doesn’t matter.

“So what can I do to help?”

You have to stop your attention wandering, as not concentrating on the task in hand could get you both killed. Or worse. You shove one of the magna-clamps in her direction.

“If anything goes wrong, I’ll deal with it. Once the levers are engaged I don’t want you to let go of that clamp _for any reason_ until I say so, d’you hear me?”

You bite the words out; you know you sound angry, and you’re sorry for it, but this once you need her to listen. Something is screaming in your mind that this is it, this is the storm you’ve both felt coming at you for months since the Isolus, and it terrifies you at a level so deep you cannot summon your usual face-saving babble; hence the short, abrupt sentences.

“Bu—”

Rose starts to object but you cut in, your tone urgent, desperate for her to understand.

“Don’t you see? It’s going to be dangerous, I won’t be able to protect you, and I l—” You choke off the last word, unable to say it even in extremis, and cut yourself off before starting again. “Rose, I— I— oh, sod this for a game of soldiers. If you’ve ever loved me, even a little ...”

_See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?_

Your mind taunts you, distracts you, eggs you on and tries to trick you into saying those words right at a time when you need to focus, and be clear-headed, and think of the bigger picture. For a brief second or two, as you look at Rose’s surprised expression, you let yourself indulge in the self-pitying thought that this – _this_ – is precisely why you didn’t let himself get involved at the emotional level with anybody.

But then you give yourself a mental shake and cast the self-pitying thought aside as you close the minute amount of space between you. You cup Rose’s cheek with the hand not clinging to a magna-clamp, and kiss her on the mouth, quick but fierce. And you move away, towards the cold white room that holds the ‘Ghost Shift’ equipment to send Cybermen and Daleks back to Hell. But there’s time for one last desperate attempt to get your message across, and you take it – coming as close as you've ever done to telling her that you love her and perhaps going a little way to clue her in on how much:

“Rose, once we’re in Ghost Shift – for the sake of those who love you – don’t let go of that clamp _for anything_. Not for anything at _all_.”


	5. Storm Winds Blowing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes it’s difficult to remember the Beast _lied_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This sends _Doomsday_ AU.

Words seem superfluous as you busy yourselves with attaching the magna-clamps to the wall of the Rift Chamber. There’s one on each side of the room: one per lever. Never keen on taking shortcuts with Rose’s safety you’re fussing around her with the harassed air of a mother hen, trying to improvise a harness from the contents of your pockets.

You’re more grateful than usual for your skills in jiggery pokery as you fashion something that might, if push comes to shove, prove useful if Rose’s grip on the magna-clamp doesn’t hold. Even as you try not to think about that scenario, the Beast’s taunt of how “the valiant child” will “die in battle” rings around your head and although you’ll deny it to anyone who asks you’re terrified something will take her from you. You’re determined to do or say whatever is necessary to make sure the Beast’s prediction will not come true. When you’re satisfied Rose is attached to her magna-clamp, you leave her to attend to your own, wildly confident you will not need a similar harness.

“Press the red button,” you say as you do so yourself, and you flash a grin at her as you try to tamp down the mushrooming fear that threatens to choke you. As a way to distract yourself, you start talking. Unlike earlier, when your sentences were short and abrupt, the words tumble over each other on their way out of your mouth, insistent on being heard.

“When it starts,” you say, “it shouldn’t be too bad for us but the Daleks and the Cybermen are steeped in Void Stuff. Remember: whatever you do, _do not_ let go of that clamp. Are you ready?”

Without stopping to hear an answer, you scramble over to put yourself in position and turn to look over at Rose when you don’t hear her move. She seems transfixed by something outside the window as she moves towards her own lever.

“So are they.”

Four Daleks appear at the window. Damn; you thought you’d have a little more time to reassure yourself Rose is as safe as you can make her, but you suppose beggars can’t be choosers and all that so you paste a manic grin on your face to hide your fear. You’re adamant you will not let her know how frightened for her you are, and so when you next speak your tone holds an unnatural cheerfulness:

“Let’s do it!”

The two of you push the levers until they lock and then hurry to take hold of the magna-clamps.

“Online,” the computer says.

You’ve seen many a planet with androids – a fair number of which you’ve had to run from as fast as the TARDIS can get you away – and as a result this computer’s anthropomorphic voice unsettles you. But you wrench your mind away from it, knowing you need to focus on what you’re doing when there’s so much at stake.

Just as your mind begins to co-operate with you the area fills with strong white light and the sound of a howling wind; your sense of foreboding increases exponentially at hearing this and the hairs at the back of your neck stand up. You watch Rose struggling with the magna-clamp, and at the sight your mind again wanders from the task in hand; to you _nothing_ is more important than Rose surviving this and the Cybermen and Daleks crashing through the room on their one-way ticket into the Void are almost irrelevant.

Rose must have seen you looking at her; she smiles across at you as you rock to-and-fro in the breach-wind. You’re grinning back at her, intent on hiding your true feelings to the last, when a sudden small explosion happens on Rose’s side of the room and the lever she’s been looking after begins to move back towards the “off” position.

“Offline,” the computer says, and as the suction eases you feel your smile fade from your face as Rose reaches for the lever whilst at the same time trying to keep her grip on the magna-clamp. You shout at her, not through anger but because there is no other way to be heard over the howling of the “wind”.

“Rose! Rose, what are you _doing_?”

What she is trying to do is obvious even to you, but as things stand the lever is too far away for her to reach. Full of dread you keep your mouth shut and your attention riveted on her as, in straining to reach the lever, she ends up letting go of the magna-clamp and thus falls on the lever itself.

“I’ve gotta get it upright!”

She pushes the lever upwards, straining with the effort. You know the jiggery pokery you used to create the harness to protect her means it doesn’t have the flexibility to let her complete the action still wearing it; you watch in horror as Rose deliberately releases herself from it to finish the job.

She manages to push the lever upright as you, panicking now, watch her with your heart in your mouth. This is what you’d feared, what you’d dreaded happening and why you’d told her over and over to hold on to the magna-clamp whatever happened.

“Online and locked,” the computer says, but you ignore it; as the suction increases again, you will Rose to keep hold of the lever.

“Rose,” you shout, desperate, “hold on!”

She tries to hook her foot around the discarded harness, but fails; she tries a second time and, again, fails before concentrating all her attention on keeping her grip on the lever against the Void – which pulls at her, making it more and more difficult for her to hold on.

You curse under your breath for not foreseeing that she would behave like this and for not doing more to stop her.

“ _HOLD ON!_ ”

You scream it at her, so consumed with reaching out to protect her that the fact the “wind” is easing goes by unnoticed. Your entire attention is monopolised by Rose’s predicament and you stare at her in utter terror, powerless to do anything to help her, as you see her hold on the lever slip.

Rose notices her grip is slipping, and you see her try to compensate for it and in doing so lose the grip completely, and you scream her name as you see her being pulled away towards the Void. You can do nothing at all except watch her fall. It’s slow, which makes it worse, and when the two of you lock eyes with each other neither of you notice the “wind” has lessened and her rate of movement is slowing.

You mouth her name again – she is just about to reach the breach to the Void – and for a few moments neither of you see she has almost stopped moving. Then you realise the breach is closing itself, and the “wind” is dying down fast – the end of the Ghost Shift.

“Systems closed,” the computer announces just as Rose slithers to a stop by the cold, white wall that had once been the mouth of Hell itself; you stare at her for a second, weak with relief and breathing very heavily, before you are by her side and pulling her into what is probably the tightest hug you’ve ever given her.

“What were you _thinking_?” you hiss at her, grateful beyond measure that the Void did not claim her.

And everywhere is silence.


	6. Storm Clouds Lightening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the silence comes the reckoning.

The first few minutes seem to last for hours, although that’s impossible even for you. But you seem frozen to the floor after you realise that not only has the mouth of the Void closed but Rose – who you’d been so sure would end up trapped there with the Daleks and the Cybermen, a fate worse than death you don’t want to think about – is still here, in her own universe, _with you_. As soon as you can make your body move you’re running over to her, pulling her into the tightest hug you’ve ever given her, not quite believing the universe has been this kind to you.

You hold her to you for a moment, revelling that this time, she lives – but she’s lost her mother, and this makes you feel guilty about feeling so happy she’s still with you. You wonder how soon it’ll be before she realises she’ll never see Jackie again. Although you know you need to get the two of you out of there before anything else happens (you’re not in the mood for long explanations, for a start, which will happen if you’re still in this room when the authorities get here) you’re hesitant to move her.

She pulls away from you, and you have to force yourself not to react the way you long to, by promising her the moon, but let her do what she needs to do. And, when what she needs to do turns out to be slamming her hands against that white wall while tears of raw grief stream down her face, it takes everything you have to stop yourself going to her and wrapping her in your arms. Even then, it’s mere seconds before you’re reaching for her.

Just before you pull her to you, she seems to notice your presence and almost throws herself at you. You react by hugging her, rocking her back and forth in your arms, and telling her everything will be all right.

(It’s a lie, but what else can you do?)

You stay that way for a long while, your arms around each other, you comforting her as the storm of first grief goes through her. Time is of the essence, but you refuse to leave her even for a minute at this stage; she’s too raw, and your need to comfort her is stronger than your need to leave. When the tears ease, Rose is leaning against your chest, clutching your suit jacket with one hand and wiping the tears from her eyes with the other, still sobbing.

It's a full hour and a half after the Void closes before you arrive back in the TARDIS. Rose has closed herself off from you and, as this is new, it has you worrying about her mental state. You put the TARDIS in the Vortex, the one place you are certain you are safe from everything, and then take Rose to your bedroom and put her in your bed. Your room is larger than hers, you tell yourself, although when you’re this worried about her there’s no way you’re about to leave her. Not that she seems inclined to let you out of her reach, anyway. You lay her down on the mattress and curl yourself around her, pulling the covers up over both of you before encouraging her through whispers and caresses to sleep. Sleep is the best cure you can offer for what ails her.

You take a while – days, you think, although in the TARDIS it’s never easy to gauge time’s passing – to figure out how to get a message to Jackie and let her know her daughter is all right. The TARDIS remains in the Vortex because you know the one thing you _can_ do for Rose is to let her be somewhere she feels safe. That doesn’t mean you let her out of your sight.

The two of you slide in to a routine of sorts over those few days. Starting with a shower in the morning – together, as has been the case for months now. Physical intimacy isn’t an issue, it’s more your absolute inability to be apart from each other at all. Breakfast follows, where you cajole her into eating by tempting her with her favourite foods and pretending you’re not worried in the slightest when she doesn’t want to eat any of them. Then it’s either to the console room (where she sits on the captain’s chair, with a blanket tucked around her, while you do repairs or type into the console computer) or the library (where you sit beside her, one of your arms wrapped around her, while you study old books and other texts from your long-gone race trying to find answers to this latest dilemma). Lunch follows much the same pattern as breakfast, and then it’s the console room or library again until dinner. Dinner is over when neither of you are inclined to eat. Afterwards, it’s back to your room for bed as she is exhausted by then – mentally, if not physically – but still can’t bear to let you out of her sight.

You wonder if she thinks she’ll lose you, too, if she lets go of you. You know how she feels.

You’re doing your level best to anticipate her needs – food, warmth, company – without her having to ask. You know from experience how frightening and lonely it can be when you’re ripped from everything you’ve known with no chance of going back. The Time War isn’t the same thing as what happened at Canary Wharf, but enough similarities exist for you to have a damn good idea what’s going through her head. Having been through it himself you know what to expect, and can help her. At least a little – which you know isn’t enough, but it’s much better than nothing.

When you find the gap through the Void, too small for the TARDIS to pass through but large enough to send a holographic projection, you’d almost given up. But when you help Rose with what she needs to do to get her mother to the place where the walls between the universes are at their thinnest you realise that from Rose’s point of view, compared to what’s coming, what you’ve been through already is nothing.

But you’ll help her through it, every step of the way.


	7. Silentium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’s quieter than you’ve ever known her to be, and it frightens you.

She sits there, silent and unmoving, and you’re so frightened for her that it practically consumes him. It’s your fault, as usual; it’s _all_ your fault, and although there was nothing you could do to prevent it that fact does nothing to remove the guilt you feel.

She’s here, and right now little else matters; you, Last of the Time Lords, have your universe defined by this mere slip of a girl and you see no cause to change it. If she comes through this in one piece, sane and relatively happy, it’s good enough for you.

It’s more than enough.


	8. Storm Clouds Passing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before the universes separate for ever, there’s time to say good-bye.

“ _Mum?_ ”

You sit bolt upright in bed. You could swear you’d heard Rose whisper in your mind, but _that’s_ impossible. Rose has been gone for months – no, years – now, and although you’d always hoped she’d made it back to the Doctor, you were never certain.

You’d made the best of it with Pete. He’d been so much like the man you’d lost years before you’d found it impossible not to love him almost as much as you’d loved that long-dead man. He’d found it more difficult – it seems your alter ego here had been an absolute bitch. When he’d said you were like a dream come true for him, you’d wept for joy.

You have two children now; twins, a girl and a boy. You named the girl Hope, for obvious reasons, and Pete named the boy Anthony (although you both call him “Tony”). You’re happy, but that doesn’t mean you don’t think of Rose every day, wondering.

Pete, woken by your sudden movement, sits up beside you and asks, in a groggy voice, what’s wrong.

“I heard a voice, and it was calling my name,” you tell him.

“A voice?” Pete’s tone is wary, but holds genuine interest.

“Yeah, but not just any voice. It was Rose, Pete. My little girl.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you getting your hopes up and then being disappointed. If it is Rose – and I’m not saying it isn’t, I’ve been around that Doctor bloke long enough to know this is the sort of thing he’d be in up to his neck – then we’ll wait and see, yeah, sees what happens next?”

You nod, yawning.

“S’pose you’re right.” You soon doze back off to sleep, although the dreams you have that night are all of Rose, who is telling you where to find her, where she is.

When you realise the voice, whispering in your mind the next morning, is unmistakably Rose you run to tell Pete. Nobody else, because they’ll think you’re mad. But Pete believes you because he’s met the Doctor. And he listens, nodding, to what you’re saying about Rose and the Doctor and Norway.

“All right,” he says, when you finish, “I’ll check with Joan that she’s happy to stay with the twins until we get back, and if it’s okay with her, we’ll go tonight.”

And that night, the two of you pack up, get into Pete’s old Jeep and off you go, into the night. Just like your dream said.

You follow the voice across the water … keep on driving, hundreds and hundreds of miles. Because Rose is calling, and you want closure, want to know your baby girl will be okay.

“ _Mum?_ ”

And you end up on a deserted, somewhat bleak, beach in Norway. Pete parks the Jeep and seems to consider standing next to it to let you have your privacy before deciding against it. At this point he’s still trailing you; you’re walking across the sand at a rate of knots looking for something. A clue, perhaps, about where Rose is?

Here you are, at last, where Rose has called you. You come to a sudden halt in the middle of the beach and stand there, waiting. It gives Pete the chance he needs to catch up, and when he reaches your side the two of you see Rose fade into view as if out of thin air. She’s slightly translucent, and you know she isn’t really there.

“Where are you?”

It’s a foolish question, you think, but an instinctual one. It isn’t as if you know where your daughter is, even if you suspect she’s with the Doctor.

“Inside the TARDIS.”

_What a surprise._ It almost escapes your notice that Rose’s voice sounds as distant as her slightly translucent image makes her look.

“There’s one tiny little gap in the universe left, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection – the Doctor says we’re in orbit around a super-nova.” Rose laughs, softly, although there’s no humour in the sound. “We’re burning up a sun, just to say good-bye.”

“Good-bye?”

You can’t help asking the question. You’re not sure what you’d expected, but this isn’t it. Saying good-bye to your little girl like this? No. “You look like a ghost!” You blurt it out, your distress palpable. Pete comes closer and puts his arm around your shoulders, grounding you and giving wordless comfort.

“Hold on,” Rose says, and she turns to speak to somebody you can’t see, but know is the Doctor. “She can’t see me properly,” she says to him. It is clear from her tone you’re not the only one who’s distressed. “Is there something you can do about that?”

You hear a strange whirring sound and the next thing you know, Rose looks as solid as if she is truly there. You walk over to her and raise a hand to touch her face.

“Can I t—?”

Rose’s eyes fill with tears and, for a moment, you wish you hadn’t asked.

“I’m still just an image, Mum,” she says, and it’s obvious that she’s seconds away from breaking down. “No touch.”

You swallow hard, determined to be brave, but when you speak next, your trembling voice betrays you.

“Can’t you come through properly?”

Rose can’t answer you and looks back at the Doctor, frantic. A flash of brown pinstripes later, you see the Doctor appear and take Rose into his arms. You notice from the way Rose slumps against his chest that the Doctor is almost literally holding her up.

“The whole thing would fracture,” he says, and while you can hear the sorrow in his voice, you know he’s serious. “Two universes would collapse.”

“So?”

The old you, the Jackie you had been when he’d known you, shows through a little then and he smiles at you for a second. Rose clings to him and you stare greedily at your daughter.

“Where are we?” the Doctor asks. “Where did the gap come out?”

“We're in Norway.”

“Norway? Right.”

“About fifty miles out of Bergen, I think. It’s called ‘Dårlig Ulv Stranden’.”

“Dalek?”

There’s a surprised sound in the Doctor’s voice, and something approaching fear.

“Dår _lig_ ,” you repeat, thinking he must have misheard. “Apparently it’s Norwegian for ‘bad’.”

That doesn’t seem to make him any less unsettled, you realise, as he continues to stare at you.

“I’m told this translates as ‘Bad Wolf Bay’,” you say. “Funny name for a beach, if you ask me.”

Rose stiffens in the Doctor’s arms at that name, but you don’t notice.

“How long have we got?” Rose asks the Doctor, her voice cracking.

“About two minutes,” he replies, all his attention on her again.

Rose closes her eyes for a second, appearing to brace herself, and you almost laugh at the absurdity of it all.

“I can’t think what to say!”

You watch the Doctor tighten his arms around Rose for a second and lean down to whisper something in her ear. Rose nods briefly and shakes herself, taking herself in hand as she glances towards where Pete is standing offering moral support.

“You’ve still got Pete, then?” Rose asks, seemingly happy that you have somebody.

“There’s four of us now,” you say, steeling yourself to tell Rose about the brother and sister she’ll never see. “Me, Pete … and the twins.”

“Twins? You mean …?”

“Yeah, a boy and a girl; Tony, and Hope. They were a surprise, and no mistake.”

“There gonna be more Tylers on the way, then?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t discount it. Although they’re a right handful, that’s for sure. And what about you? Are you …?”

“ _No_.” Rose’s reaction is a little too abrupt for your liking, and for a moment you wonder whether there’s something Rose hasn’t told the Doctor yet. You’re not stupid; you know the two of them are physically involved with each other and have been for a while. “No, no, nothing like that at all.”

You notice the Doctor’s expression change and think it may not be the case for too much longer. But you smile at Rose and say nothing – it’s none of your business.

“No,” Rose continues, “it’s just the two of us here. Me and the Doctor, in the TARDIS, just as it should be.”

Her voice breaks at that point and she buries her face in the Doctor’s jacket. There’s a moment of silence and you watch the Doctor run his hands up and down your daughter’s back in wordless comfort before he turns back to you.

“You’re dead, officially, back home. So many people died that day and you’ve gone missing. You’re on a list of the dead.”

Tears start to roll down your face.

“But here you are.” He smiles at you, but it’s sad. “Living a life, day after day. The one adventure I can never have.”

You’re sobbing now, and you aim your next words at both your daughter and the Doctor.

“Am I ever gonna see you again?”

The Doctor’s smile disappears completely. You see the pain in his expression as he tells you,

“You can’t.”

“What’re you gonna do?” You’re trying desperately not to fall apart but it’s a losing battle.

“Oh, Rose and I have the TARDIS. Same old life, you know how it is.”

You nod, saying nothing as the Doctor watches you with compassion written all over his face. Rose, tears falling thick and fast, stammers something out, desperate for you to hear it.

“Mum, I lo—”

She chokes on her tears before she can finish her sentence. The Doctor offers her his hand, and she takes it. Clutching him tightly, Rose takes a second to regain her composure and then starts over.

“I love you, Mum.”

A shuddering sob escapes you as you gaze at your daughter with tenderness and devotion.

“I know, Rose,” you say. “I know you do.” You smile at her through your own tears.

“I’ll send your love to Mickey and the twins, shall I? And Rose, don’t forget, I lo—”

And it’s too late to finish. Rose fades away into nothingness, and you’re left on the beach alone save for Pete. You screw your face up against the pain until Pete pulls you into a hug and you let the tears come, knowing wherever Rose is she’ll be weeping too.

But the one thing you’re sure of is this: your daughter is safe and happy, with the man she loves. Much as it hurts to be without her, you would never dream of denying her that.


End file.
